Letting Go of the Myth of Progress

 

Me in the Kitchen

I was meeting recently with some friends on Zoom. Because of the latest Omicron wave of the pandemic, so much of our social life has gone back to virtual meetings for the time being, and the topic we were discussing was what our goals and dreams for the future were, once this Omicron wave subsides. I thought it was a fitting topic for the beginning of January, when so many of us set goals for the upcoming year.

I used to be one of those people. Although I didn't make New Year's resolutions per se, at the beginning of each year I typically took some time to review the past year's life events and accomplishments, and then wrote up a series of goals for the upcoming year. 

In true Type-A fashion, these were not vague wish statements such as: "I hope to exercise a little more this year." No indeed. I wrote out goals that were specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely, or SMART goals. Examples of this type of goal is: "I will walk for a minimum of 20 minutes a day, 6 days per week." Or, I will sustain an average of 9,000 steps per day each week."*

My goal list usually consisted of 5-7 main categories, each broken down into subcategories, with goal statements under those. For example, the categories might be: Work, Health, Creativity, Social Life, Family, and Travel. Under Health, I might have subcategories such as Fitness, Food, and Work-Life Balance, and then under each one of those, I would develop SMART goals, often with associated timelines. I have written about this goal-setting process and some of the stumbling blocks here. 

A Sunny Day at Mount Washington

 

So, anyways, when I was thinking about our discussion question in advance before meeting on Zoom, I was stumped. I had set no goals for 2022. I felt no desire to set goals for 2022. Was it because the past two years taught me that there is no point in setting goals, because as soon as we make a plan for travel or to get together with friends and family, another wave of COVID comes along with new public health restrictions that kibosh everything?

No, I am still a great believer in goals and plans. I would not have had the interesting life I've had if I'd been goalless throughout my life.

I used to visualize my life as a trek up a mountain. Each time I reached a summit, I would see another peak appear in front of me, and then I'd shift my aim to reach that next peak. My life was a life of endless striving, always going for the next big thing. My personal myth of progress.

Notice the past tense. Now that I've retired, have I given up? Am I just sitting here waiting for death? Certainly, in my younger years, that was how I dichotomized it -- move forward making progress, or sit still and fail/die. 

Abby with Stick

As I've settled into retirement, I've come to see a number of things quite differently. For example, I've stepped away from the academic life, which in the first few years of retirement included doing research, giving talks, publishing, reviewing manuscripts, and supervising students. It's time. I don't miss it. And I don't feel like less of a person because I'm no longer striving toward that next scholarly peak or adding another line to my CV. I climbed that mountain and now it's behind me.

I have been sitting with something Rob said to me. "Why are you always wanting to rush off somewhere else? We live in a beautiful part of the world in a perfectly nice house. Can't you just be content to stay here and enjoy what we have?"

His comments lay bare my myth of progress. If I always have my sights set on the next destination (summit, accomplishment, goal completion), do I even have time to notice where I am right now? That is Zen wisdom, to live in the moment, because the moment is all we really have. 

So I said to my Zoom friends, "I didn't set goals for the year. I think I'm letting go of striving and the myth of progress."

But does a leopard change its spots? Maybe the real truth of it is that work obligations used to suck up most of my waking hours. Now that I'm retired and able to spend time walking trails every day with Abby, cooking healthy meals, sleeping enough, spending time with friends and family, hanging out with Rob, writing, skiing, painting, doing yoga, and so on (and hopefully travelling again soon), I actually have the life I always wanted. I don't have to set goals to get here. I'm here.

Christmas 2021 Photos 

One brother and all three of my kids were here with their families for Christmas this year, and we had a wonderful time together. The good life.

With Daughters

Christmas Dinner

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grandson

Son and his Fiancee

 ***

* Why 9,000 rather than 10,000 steps a day? Because I had read a research article somewhere that evaluated whether the popular press had settled on 10,000 steps because it was a nice round number or because there was research evidence that 10,000 steps was, in fact, the best daily walking target for most people. The conclusion of the article was that, for most people, any increase in daily steps yielded health benefits, and specifically for women over 60, an average of 9,000 steps per day yielded the optimum health gain for the time spent (with daily steps beyond 9,000 still beneficial, but at a diminishing rate).

Learning to Let it Be

Magnolia Blooms

Stay the Course

Today is our 33rd day of staying home, sheltering in place. It's been almost five weeks.

 

Societal Lessons

 

This pandemic has had some lessons to teach us. At the the broader societal level, we have been learning that:

• To have a good life, our close relationships and other human connections matter most of all -- more than engaging work, personal accomplishments, material acquisitions, or fun activities. 
• Essential workers, especially health care workers, have become our everyday heroes. They are ordinary people doing their jobs in extraordinary circumstances. They have reached deep inside and found the courage and faith to keep going, taking care of us all by making sure we have groceries, caring for the elderly and treating the ill, even while risking their own health and lives. When called upon, will each of us find our own inner hero?
• Leadership really matters. COVID-19 has shown us that the difference between good and poor leadership can be and presently is a matter of life and death. So we need to choose our leaders wisely.
• We are interconnected, globally. "Globalization" has been a buzz word for decades, but now we are learning what it really means. The disease transmission process demonstrates how people in each city, country, or continent affect each other. If people across the border from you have the coronavirus (or people on the next continent), it is only a matter of time until your city (or continent) has it too. To address it effectively, we have to work together across our communities and worldwide, supporting the "have-nots" as well as the "haves." We can apply this same insight about inter-connectivity to worldwide economics, food-security, and climate change. 

Personal Lessons

 

Trillium on Today's Hike

The pandemic also has been teaching me some lessons at a personal level. The biggest lesson I have been learning is to "Let it Be."

All my life, I have been achievement-oriented -- a doer. I have approached life at full tilt, a ball of energy. I have no patience whatsoever, and have always felt that I must spend every moment of my life doing something productive. (On the plus side, I'm never bored.)

As you can imagine, I'm not very "zen." My greatest struggle in trying to learn to meditate is to make myself sit still "wasting time" doing "nothing" when I could be doing something productive.

My approach to life made the decision to retire difficult for me. 

I retired in stages. The first part of the process lasted a year or two, and during it I agonized about whether and when to retire. Finally, I decided to step down from my role as an administrator (which was very stressful and causing negative health consequences), but without actually retiring. I planned to transition back to a teaching role after a year of earned sabbatical leave. Halfway through my sabbatical year, I realized I was, in fact, ready to retire. I've now been retired for almost three years.

I have included several links to blog posts I wrote back then tracking my thought process about retiring. I found it very hard to let go of my work. What I did everyday seemed to be core to who I was. When I was no longer working productively, who would I be?

As it turned out, I love being retired. I discovered I was still me, and that my work did not define who I was.

But, I brought my characteristic energy and work ethic to retirement and immediately joined a whole bunch of groups and organizations. Before I knew it, I once again had a calendar full of meetings and other commitments. Yes, the meetings were about things that I like to do -- art, writing, community volunteer work, social gatherings, exercise activities, book club, academic writing projects, and so on. It was nothing like the grueling long hours of work I used to do. But still, I no longer had many unscheduled chunks of time left. I was being productive -- all the time. I was also beating myself up for not doing even more.

Manicotti stuffed with Spinach and Cheese

Homemade Berry Pie

Staying at home because of the pandemic has given me a second chance to retire. Everything disappeared from my calendar. I am finding out what it is like to just be rather than to always do. I haven't had time like this to let it be since I was a child.

I've discovered that I love just puttering in the garden or in the kitchen. It is peaceful to have unscheduled contemplative days. Although I have appreciated zoom conferencing weekly with my yoga class and my blogging buddies, and monthly with my book club and my writers' group, I've resisted adding any more conferences into my days.

It no longer matters if it's Monday or Saturday. I don't have to go anywhere. I can just hang out at home, and go for a walk if the mood strikes. I'm no longer personally responsible for single-handedly solving climate change, or for writing the defining book of the century, and that's okay.

Zoom Session with Blogging Buddies

Let it be. 

Something You Don't Know About Me

Something you don't know about me -- what could that be? I have been writing this blog for ten years now, and I have written about a lot of different aspects of my life. But not everything. For example, I have hardly written anything at all about the kind of work I did before I retired, even though it consumed 40-60 hours a week of my life for 35 years.

But that is not what I am writing about today.

A thing that not many people know about me is that I do not watch TV. At all. Ever. With a couple of small exceptions.

I watch elections, including Canadian provincial and federal elections, and American presidential elections. I watch the Winter Olympics (but not the Summer Olympics). And I watch FIFA World Cup soccer, both the men's and the women's competitions. Other than that, nada.

We do actually have a television. It lives in the basement, where we mostly use it to watch movies. These are not movies on TV, but selections from Rob's huge collection of DVDs. Recently we began to subscribe to Netflix, and sometimes watch Netflix movies on the television. I occasionally watch an episode from a Netflix series on my iPad, but not very often.

Cycling the Local Trails

Rob watches lots of movies every week, usually on his computer. He is a bit of a movie buff. But he doesn't watch much TV either. We do have a digital cable package, and when my son lived with us, he used to watch hockey.

My experience with the TV is so limited that, until the recent World Cup competition this summer, I didn't even know how to use the remotes to turn ours on, or how to find channels. I do not have any interest in TV. I am so unused to being around a television that when I am in a place where there is one blaring, such in a bar where several are playing, I find it hard to mentally tune them out.

A Visit From Our Good Friends Blanca and Vaughan

I grew up in a house where the TV was turned on all day long, and as a child, I did watch TV. However, on the northern frontier where I grew up, TV did not come to our community until I was in primary school. When it did finally broadcast to the north, we only received one channel and there was no cable. It was CBC, our Canadian national television station mixed with some local programming. Eventually we got two channels, CBC and CTV.

Yoga on a Log

When I left home at 18, I stopped watching TV, and never felt the lack of it. When I got my own apartment, I did not get a television. My life was so busy that I did not want to "waste" time watching TV programs. I read a lot instead.

My first husband brought a TV back into my life, but I still rarely watched it. I did have a brief interest in LA Law and Star Trek, Next Generation in the late '80s. My preschool-aged children watched children's programs like Friendly Giant, Fred Penner, and Sesame Street. When I became single again, the TV went down to the basement and we no longer subscribed to cable, until the kids became teenagers and begged me to get cable once again. Occasionally I would watch something with them -- Friends, That Seventies Show, Seinfeld, The Simpsons, or Family Guy.

Rob's High School Buddy Comes to Visit

Because of my lack of immersion in TV programming, sometimes I feel like a bit of a cultural idiot. Back in the days when everyone was breathlessly following a series such as Dallas, or Survivor, I was unable to contribute to conversations at coffee break or at a social gathering. I don't know the names of television actors or the characters they played. Similarly, I can't say who won the Stanley Cup this year, nor do I know which player was traded to which team for what outrageous sum of money.

A Trip Up North to Visit My Mom

But, strangely, for the three things that I do like to watch -- elections, Olympics, and World Cup -- I become totally obsessed. This year was a year in which both the Winter Olympics and the men's World Cup took place, as both of them are on the same four-year cycle. So I had a period of excessive TV watching in February for the Olympics, and another period in July, watching World Cup.

One of Several Yummy Dinners on the Deck

I think the reason that I like the Winter Olympics so much is that I do (or used to do) several winter sports -- alpine skiing, nordic skiing, and figure skating, and my daughter used to be a freestyle skier, and my son snowboards. Similarly, World Cup interests me because I played soccer on and off from childhood through until I was 55. I also coached soccer for a couple of years.

Helping my Son With a Move to a New Apartment

I was so motivated to watch World Cup this summer that I learned to use the TV remotes! Rob subscribed to on-demand programming for the sports channel so I could follow the World Cup matches. (Have I mentioned that he is a sweetie?) I even downloaded an app onto my iPad so that I could watch matches if I had to be away from the TV, which I was frequently as we travelled a lot last month.

A Visit to Victoria to See a Dear Friend

 One thing that I know for sure is that retirement hasn't turned me into a television aficionado. The photos throughout this post show some of the fun things that we did last month. We did lots of travelling and had some visitors. I think that not watching much TV has made my life more rich and interesting.

It's Been a Year!

Today is July 1, Canada Day. On this day, Canadians are celebrating Canada's 151st birthday. This date is also meaningful to me for personal reasons.

It has been quite the year! Exactly a year ago today was my first day of retirement. It was also the day that we took possession of our new house on Vancouver Island. So, on this significant anniversary, I will dedicate this blog post to a romp through some highlights of the past year.

July

Celebrating 150 Years Since Confederation on July 1, 2017

In July last year, we drove out to the Island to sign the final documents and take possession of our new house. Then we raced east back to our house on the prairies to finalize the sale for our house there, to pack, and to move. The moving truck loaded up our belongings on July 25. During that month, amidst the emotions and exhaustion of preparing to move, we took time to enjoy some of our favourite things one last time.

August

August, of course, also was devoted to moving, except this time to unpacking what we had just packed up, and setting up our new home. We spent all of 12 days moving in and unpacking, then we were off again on a three-week camper trip to northern BC! We attended a wedding and visited with lots of friends and family. We especially had fun with our other set of grand kids -- who had also just moved into a different house. We attended a Fall Fair and also managed to fit in a hike or two.

A Hike with my Brother. Looking across the Valley at Hudson Bay Mountain.

September

In September, we finally stopped racing around all over the country and began to settle into our new community and new life. We were thrilled to discover that where our house is located in a rural area, there is an elaborate network of walking trails right outside our door.

A Favourite Local Trail

 September gave me a chance to get a first glimpse of what retired life might be like for me. I wrote about the relaxed pace of a typical day, which is a huge contrast to the intensity of the long hours of work that I was used to. Instead of the possible difficult transition that I predicted, as I wrote about about in a guest post (drafted in June and posted in September), I found that I was enjoying retirement very much indeed!

October

At the Pumpkin Farm

Of course, the best thing of all about our new location is lots of family time. For example, one glorious October day, I went to a pumpkin farm and corn maze with my grandsons and their parents. I also participated in an art show as a guest artist.

November

Snow in Our Garden in November

 In November, I participated in NaNoWriMo and added another 40,000 words to my novel. My daughter hosted organized and hosted an art show in Vancouver featuring 23 international gif artists, and I attended.  November also included a surprise trip to Hanover, Germany, for a film festival where my daughter showed her work. We followed that up with a visit to Berlin.

Erica at the International GIF Fest

December

In December, we visited Vancouver again and saw the Cirque du Soleil's Kurios show.

We Enjoyed the Show

December was a whirl of activity, including a family skate party, skiing, family coming to spend Christmas with us, and of course, a big family dinner.

Family Skating Party

January

In January, we really settled into our new life. We enjoyed spending time with the grand kids, as well as lots of walks and trips to the ski hill. When it rained nonstop for the last two weeks in January, we went to the furniture shop and bought new living room furniture. (See, that's what too much rain can do to you!)

We Love the Local Ski Hill

February

February involved lots of hikes, lots of skiing, lots of time with the grand kids, time spent with friends, yoga, volunteer work, and time to read. So this is what it's like when you have time for a real life!

Fun at the Playground

March

We went skiing on average once a week from January through April. We have made new friends here who like to ski. I joined a local group of artists and spent lots of time getting ready for an art show in April, and working with Erica to build an art website.

Rathtrevor Beach

April

I joined a writers' group, and started working on my novel again. I showed my paintings at a weekend art show.

Easter Egg Hunt

May

I set up a studio and gallery named Notch Hill Art, and launched the website.

Ocean Sunset

June

I certainly have not lacked for things to do this first year of retirement. Considering how concerned I was about making the leap to retirement, I have to say that I am the most surprised of everyone to discover how much I love being retired.

Kate Enjoys my Retirement Too

It has been interesting to look back over the year. Despite the stresses of packing up and moving to a new place, and despite my fears about throwing my career away if I retired, I would have to say that my retirement transition has been extremely positive this first year. I am glad that I retired, and I really like living on Vancouver Island!

How I Tricked Myself into Retiring

Dear readers, if you have been following posts on my blog, you will know that I am a recent but happy retiree. The person who is most surprised about this is me.

You see, during my career, I was the classic workaholic. I used to joke about it. "I am so busy. I have so much to do. Work, work, work -- that defines my life. I must be a bit of a workaholic."

I used to come home weeping with exhaustion after 12 and 14 hour days, when I had not had time to step away from the computer or eat a meal. We routinely ate dinner at 8:00 or 9:00 at night, because I seldom came home before 7:00 or 8:00 pm. Our family and friends lived far away, and although I made quick trips to visit as often as I could and kept in touch by phone, it was not enough. I was constantly frustrated that I did not have enough time for exercise or creative endeavours. The stress and the pace began to affect my health.

But, for all of that, I really didn't think that there was all that much wrong with my life. Or maybe it was more that I couldn't imagine that there was any other way to be. The big educational institutions where I had pursued my career had socialized me into excessive work as a lifestyle. I looked around and saw all of my peers working the same crazy long hours that I was. As we ran past each other in the hallways, our typical conversations went something like this:

"How are you?"
"Busy. Just unbelievably busy. How about you?"
"Me too. Busy, busy, busy. I'm dealing with the X crisis and the Y crisis, and I thought we had a solution for the Z crisis, but there's a new wrinkle, and it has to be dealt with today."
"Well. I have to go. I have three back-to-back meetings, and I'm double booked over lunch hour."
"Yeah, I'm racing to a meeting too, and I'll be here all weekend for the W event."
"Good luck."
"Take care."

As much as I tried to seek a better balance between my work life and personal life, the work demands were urgent and unrelenting.

Besides, I loved my career. I had spent decades studying and working in different roles within the university system. I was deeply invested in being a professor, researcher, and administrator. I didn't know who I was apart from my work identity. I was afraid of giving it all up, only to discover that my career self was all that I was.

When I began to realize that it was time to retire, I struggled with the decision. I remember that I started to write a blog post around that time called: "Throwing My Life Away." I never published it because it was so bleak and despairing.

Everybody's different, but for me, one part of the solution involved retiring in stages. The other part involved making a cognitive shift. Essentially, I tricked myself into retiring. To find out about my self-trickery, continue reading here.

I am thrilled to have been invited to guest host on Donna's blog, Retirement Reflections, once again. Please visit me there and read my post.

Fighting the Creative Muse

Rainy Day at the Beach

Since retiring in June, I have been having a fun, engaged life, and I love it. Although I have been careful to not agree to many regularly scheduled obligations this first year so as to avoid replicating my previous over-scheduled work life, I have been pretty active.

For example, in the last couple of weeks, I have done the following: completed second language lessons in German or French daily, attended yoga twice a week, gone skiing twice, made a weekend trip to Vancouver to attend the Canadian national figure skating competition and visit friends, volunteered for a local service group, made arrangements to join a group of local artists, made plans to join a local social club, gone for hikes and walks, babysat my grandsons, gone out for a dinner and a coffee date, and completed two small academic writing projects.

As well, Rob and I went for a beach walk on a rainy day, and I tried some new photography techniques.

Patterns in the Sand

This is still a very relaxed pace compared to what I am used to. Most nights, I get nine hours of sleep. Most mornings, I sit around drinking coffee, doing my language lessons, and reading for a couple of hours before I even get out of my pajamas.

But what I have not been doing is progressing on my creative writing and art projects. The last few days, I have felt restless. I have woken up grumpy, having had upsetting dreams about frustration and loss.

"Uh-oh!" I am thinking. "Maybe the honeymoon period of retirement is coming to an end. Maybe I am now going into the part of the retirement transition when I will feel at a crossroads, not knowing what my purpose is."

Karen Hume has written about the retirement transition as being a difficult time: "Your transition to retirement is supposed to hurt. If you are doing it right, there will be a lengthy period of chaos and loss occurring sometime in the first few years of retirement."

So I was thrilled to read Kathy Gottberg's most recent post, "Why wait Until Retirement to Live A Rewarding, Meaningful, and Purposeful Life?" As I have written before, I have had trouble defining my purpose. In her post, Kathy writes about the concept of dharma, and specifically Stephen Cope's perspective of it as explained in his book, The Great Work of Your Life—A Guide for the Journey to Your True Calling.

Dharma, as described by Kathy, immediately fired my imagination. It seems to be a more roomy, holistic notion than "purpose." One's dharma is what you are called to in life -- acting from your sacred duty or your true self.

I used Kathy's list of questions to guide me as I journalled about my dharma. From this process, although I still cannot put into words a single calling, I realized that I have a cluster of themes or foci in my life, or a kind of interwoven tapestry of pursuits, that all point to my dharma. Since my earliest childhood and throughout my life, creative art and writing have been persistent elements in my thematic tapestry.

I had a whole day with nothing scheduled. I didn't even have to cook. I decided that it would be my day for going into my studio and painting.  

After journalling about my dharma, there was still most of the day left. So I did a deep clean of the ensuite bathroom. I even scrubbed every centimeter of the shower tiles down on my knees with a scrub brush.

That went so well that I decided to assemble the shoe rack that I purchased two weeks ago. I set it up and filled it with shoes that had been stuffed in bags since the move.

Then I moved on to the last remaining moving box tucked away in a corner of the bedroom. I unpacked it, found homes for everything, and neatly smoothed out and rolled up the packing paper for reuse.

By now it was mid afternoon. I had not even entered my studio. I was hungry, so I made myself some lunch. While eating lunch, I re-read the chapter of Brene Brown's book Braving the Wilderness, in which she talks about writing yourself a permission slip.

Why was I avoiding painting? I love painting, and feel happy and fulfilled when I do it. I have set up a nice painting studio right in my house. Why couldn't I make myself paint?

I couldn't use my old excuse of not having enough time.

And, by the way, why have I been avoiding working on my novel? I had to put it aside in December for a bit because everything related to Christmas made things really busy. But now January's almost over. Why am I not working on it again?

This is always my battle with creative pursuits. Once I start, I am fine. But I fight the muse and find all kinds of reasons and distractions to not get started in the first place. I have often used external structures to trick myself into starting -- things like NaNoWriMo, signing up for weekly classes, or promising to submit something on a certain date thus creating a deadline.

Composition and Colour

Brown says there are two steps: 1. give yourself permission, and 2. get on the bus (do it). I wrote the two steps on a post-it.

In the late afternoon, I went downstairs, not to my studio but to my office. I put the post-it beside the computer. Then I turned it on and began to work on my novel.

Hello old friend! I am so happy to be writing again.

Film Festival in Germany

With my daughter, Erica Lapadat-Janzen

 So, if it seems as if I have been a bit absent from my blog lately here’s why. I have been travelling in Germany.

My daughter is a net artist and also works in art design in the film industry. She was invited to present one of her short films at an international film festival in Hanover, Germany, the Up and Coming Film Festival. And lucky me -- I got to come along! We went on a mother-daughter trip, with the first part of the trip in Hanover at the film festival, and then we went Berlin for a few days. So exciting!

Up and Coming Film Festival

Erica Lapadat-Janzen

This film festival features young film makers from all over the world. With only 167 films selected from over 3,000 submissions, it was exciting that Erica's film was one of the two presented from Canada.

As it turned out, Erica's film was scheduled as a headliner film, screened as part of the Opening Ceremony. I had a proud mommy moment as I sat in the theater and watched her film, and then again as Erica was invited up onto the stage to speak about her work. She did a fantastic interview.

Erica Speaks About her Work

 As a guest of one of the young film makers, I had a festival pass for the four days. It was really fun watching the films, which included a wide range of genres: narrative, action, documentary, animation, experimental, and so forth. The talent of the young film makers was astounding, and they did not shy away from taking on difficult topics and world issues.

As an example, one memorable documentary, Ici, personne ne meurt (Nobody Dies Here), showed the plight of gold miners in Benin, Africa. Another film that really made an impression on me was Terrorist, one of the films in the German section. It addressed how easily blame for a terrorist act can be misdirected, and the terrible consequences for family members who are left behind. Another film that I'll mention here, one of the winners in the international section, was Parallel. The title of this  U.S. film references the division of the Korean peninsula at the 38th parallel. The film maker, Jiwon Choi, interspersed interviews with her grandfather, who served in the Korean War, with clips showing the rise of Korean pop and commercialism. Of course, there were many additional amazing films, including some excellent short animations and some 360 degree films.

We had some adventures getting to Hanover. We barely made our connection in Frankfurt because there is a lot of construction going on at the airport. We had to disembark our flight way out on the tarmac and be bused to the terminal, clear customs, and run to our gate (through a very big airport). We were among the last to make it to the gate, then we were bused out to the plane which also was parked far from the terminal. Although we just made the connection, our luggage did not. (It eventually arrived the next afternoon.)

We Barely Made Our Connection

We stayed in a cool "Euro-style" hotel -- which was not surprising seeing as we were in Europe! Breakfast was included. I love European breakfasts. The spread included cold meat, cheeses, smoked salmon, yogurt, fruit, many nice breads, jam, as well as eggs and other hot foods, and cereal. My breakfast beverage of choice was Klein Milch Kaffee. Coffee and beer are better in Germany.

View From My Hotel Room

We ate at nice restaurants, including a Bavarian schnitzel restaurant and a couple of great Italian restaurants. I had been brushing up on my German in preparation for the trip. Unfortunately I am nowhere near fluent, but the bit of German I knew was helpful from time to time. However, most people we met spoke English much better than I speak German. Erica did lots of networking. I continued working on my novel, and managed to write another 58 pages during the ten-day trip.

I tried to write blog posts while I was there, but had technical issues. I was unable to upload photos to Blogger from my phone or tablet, which was frustrating. I had to wait until I was back home, where I could send the photos from my phone to my computer, and then upload them.

After Hanover, we went to Berlin, a city that I have long wanted to visit. More about that in another post.

Family, Small Towns, and Fall Fairs

I grew up in a small Canadian town. As a child, I loved that little town and fully intended to live there forever. But my story turned out differently.

I had aspirations to go to university. Looking around, as an adolescent, it was clear to see that there were not many career opportunities in my small town, especially for women. Going to university meant leaving my town to move to a big city far away.

After leaving to go to university, I came back to my home town for a few summers, but I never lived there full-time again. I became qualified in a profession that did not require living in a large city to obtain employment, but by that time, there also was my my husband's career to consider. Finding satisfying work for both of us ultimately meant choosing to live in larger centers.

Later, I made a career switch and was fortunate to find a great position in my new field. I relocated to a mid-sized city within driving distance of my home town. A decade later, I moved even closer, and lived in a small city only 200 kilometers away.

During all these years, several of my family members have continued to live in the little town. So I have returned again and again to visit, celebrate Christmas, go skiing, go hiking, and attend the Fall Fair.

The Fall Fair is an annual highlight that takes place in the late summer. Although I have attended similar fairs in other places, there is no Fall Fair quite like the one in my town. Recently, I attended the Fall Fair again.

Fall Fair Parade

The Fall Fair starts with a parade. The weather always seems to be terrible during Fall Fair week. This year we went early to get good seats on the curb to watch the parade, and found ourselves shivering in a cold wind. Someone made a run back to the house to get blankets and warm sweaters, and even so, we were thoroughly chilled off before the last tractor and dancing cow had meandered up the main street of town.

The next day, my young nieces were exhibiting some of their animals in the 4-H events. The whole family got involved in leading the sheep to their stalls in the sheep barn.

Preparing for the 4-H Sheep Event

There were two large buildings hosting the agricultural and handicraft exhibits. My mom and I strolled up and down the long tables examining the tomatoes and zucchinis; the homemade bread, biscuits, pies, and brownies; the homemade wines and jams; and the flower arrangements. When my dad was still alive, he always entered his homemade wines and usually came away with several ribbons. This is one of the first years that my mom, now in her eighties, has not entered her homemade jams and jellies.

We also spent a long time admiring the art categories. One of my brothers and my sister in law won ribbons for their photography, and my brother and both nieces won several ribbons for their art. I recalled entering my own paintings and drawings in the Fall Fair when I was a child. I also used to enter flowers from my own little garden during my teen years.

We ate perogies and sauerkraut, and corn on the cob and fries. We spent time hanging out at the barns enjoying a brief period of sunshine. Rob said that sitting around in the hay barn was his favourite part of the fair!

Robby Hayseed

Uncle Hayseed

Later on, there was a rodeo, and we cheered for my sister in law's younger brother as he rode the bucking bronc. And of course, the kids were thrilled about going on the circus rides and eating cotton candy.

I am grateful that I have family who still live there. I can go back year after year, and feel as if I still have a foot in my hometown. There is a wonderful sense of continuity of the generations that I sometimes miss, having chosen instead to lead a more transient life.